Two high school misfits who hate each other. One music competition where they have to work together. Can their love of classic 80s rock unite them?
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Side A: Oz
On Saturday morning, the sound of Mom vacuuming outside of my room rouses me from an amazing dream where I get a phone call that Ozzie Osborne wants to try out for my band and I have to tell him he's too old. I roll over and crush the pillow to my ears, screaming into my mattress. Not that you can hear the screaming over the vacuum. We haven't even lived in this house long enough for it to get dirty.
When it becomes clear that the vacuum hitting the closed door to my bedroom is on purpose, I roll out of bed and fall to the floor. It's only about a foot because I still haven't put together my bed frame, and I land on a pile of dirty clothes, so it doesn't hurt. It's a struggle to climb to my feet and pull on my sweatpants. Then I stagger to my stereo and find a song to fit my mood. This calls for the big guns. "We're not gonna take it! No! We ain't gonna take it!"
Twisted Sister plays for .2 seconds before Mom slams my door open.
I let out a high-pitched shriek and cover my bare nipples. "Mo-om! I'm practically naked!"
"I gave birth to you!" Mom screams over the music and the vacuum. She points at all the clothes on the floor and at the boxes I haven't unpacked yet. "We've been here for two weeks already!" she keeps screaming. "Get unpacked, and turn that down! You're gonna go deaf!"
She leaves the door open and yanks at the vacuum cord when it nearly trips her.
It sure doesn't feel like we've been here two weeks already. We moved in a week before Christmas, and Mom let me skip school for those few days before winter break. "A fresh start," she kept calling it, never saying who it was for. We didn't unpack that first week - we had Christmas at Aunt Robin's house, and the only thing we unpacked was the TV, which sat there blank and empty because Dad never called to get cable set up. Lucky I had my music or I think we all would have gone crazy.
I dig through my boxes to find my wireless headphones, and put them on before hitting the sync button. Mom, from my doorway, says something that looks like it rhymes with truck and throws up her hands before storming away. Hey, it's my free time and if I have to spend it cleaning, then I'm gonna listen to Rage Against the Machine.
I know why Mom's about to fry her sanity right now: Aunt Robin and Uncle Toby and their little monsters are coming over for lunch before we visit Gramps. Aunt Robin is one of those people who does Pinterest all day and her house is full of shit like framed quotes and wooden signs that say "Live Laugh Love" like she's actually some kind of alien who needs to be reminded of how to be human.
Aunt Robin would have an absolute nut if she came over here right now. I doubt she'd come into my room, but I wouldn't put it past her to ask for "the grand tour" like we live in a freaking mansion. I can just imagine her puckered face looking around.
I'm not sure why Mom thinks unpacking will make Aunt Robin's less puckered, but who I am to argue with authority?
The first box is easy: it has all my CDs and records. I arrange them on my shelves by color, from red to black. That's Pinterest-worthy, right? All my shoes get thrown in the closet and I dump my clothes in some drawers. Now I have three boxes to break down, which I do by jumping on them. I gotta practice my stage dives and mosh pit moves.
